In printing it is often required to add an overcoat of varnish on top of the printed area in order to change gloss, scratch resistance, water resistance or other properties. The varnish is normally clear but special coatings such as adhesives, metallic coatings, special colors etc. can also be used. The selective application of varnish is administered using flexographic plates which are generated by exposing a photo-polymer and washing away the unexposed areas. Photo-polymer flexographic plates are expensive and require a long preparation process. For simple jobs a cut rubber sheet mounted with pressure-sensitive adhesive can be used, however any adhesive sufficiently weak to allow peeling off the undesired rubber is also too weak for extended printing runs, in particular when the varnish used can dissolve the adhesive. The use of plates based on pressure sensitive adhesive is discussed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,484,684, in which a narrow range of peel strength was selected as a best compromise between durability and ease of peeling. It is an object of the invention to provide a low cost flexographic plate particularly suitable for spot varnishing which is easy to prepare by peeling the unneeded elastomer but which is durable when used with a wide range of varnishes and other coatings. Another object is to provide a durable plate not requiring any chemicals during the platemaking process. A third object is to provide a flexographic varnishing plate with better varnish carrying capability than photo-polymer plates, in particular for water based varnishes. Current plates perform poorly with water based varnishes as most elastomeric photo-polymers are hydrophobic and are not wetted properly by a water based coating.